


Pile of The Walking Dead One-Shots

by ShipperOfTheShips



Category: Criminal Minds, Supernatural, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Fandom crossover, Gen, M/M, Mild Language, Slight Hurt/Comfort, criminal minds - Freeform, original character death, slight mention of abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-03-21 16:43:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 11,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3699602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShipperOfTheShips/pseuds/ShipperOfTheShips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a bunch of one-shots with my own characters as well as canon characters. They don't really have any order to them, and if I do make sequels/prequels to one I'll say so in the notes at the beginning of the chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Grace leans against a brick ledge on the roof of the shopping mall. She stares up at the moon as she adjusts the blood-red, black, and tan poncho she wore over her leather vest. She feels the breeze flutter through the holes in the knees of her faded jeans. Her arms tucked underneath the beat up poncho as she keeps the M14 ready as a just-in-case. As she paces the perimeter, her worn, dark brown, leather boots scuff the cement. She hears the metal door of the staircase leading to the roof creek open, revealing Daryl. She keeps her eyes on the glowing orb, hoping that he might just go back and join the others. She’s really not in the mood for a heart-to-heart with this man.

Naturally, she has no such luck. Why would she?

Grace listens to the scrape of Daryl’s boots as he walks closer.

“How are ya?” he asks.

"Peachy," she responds sarcastically.

“Look, what happened out there today,” says Daryl, “It wasn’t your fault.”

Grace shakes her head and watches a pair of walkers stumble along the street and out of sight. She suddenly feels that she should have killed them. Should have killed the walkers that had taken down Justin. Her own baby brother. Shouldn’t have just stood there like a god damned deer in the headlights.

She angrily swipes the stray tear from her cheek. Daryl wraps his arm around her shoulder.

“Gracie, listen to me. We were trapped behind that damned bus together. There was nothing either of us could do.”

“I had the bow in my hand. I could have--”

“No, you couldn’t have. It would’ve taken too long to load. To get a good shot. We--you-- were stuck. We almost died with him.”

“He was my brother, Daryl,” Grace nearly shouts. “My little brother. It was my job to protect him. And I failed. I failed him.”

A sob rips it’s way from her throat as she allows the older man to pull her into his chest.

Grace is pissed because she’s crying and crying because she’s pissed. Basically an overall emotional mess. She hates herself for it. In a world like this, a person can’t afford to be weak. She doesn’t have time to mourn the loss of her little brother. No time to settle, catch a breath.

She pushes away from Daryl and roughly wipes her face on the sleeve of her flannel with a great sniff.

“You should go back,” says Grace, giving Daryl a shove toward the door through which he had come. “Get some rest. I’ve still got a few hours in me.”

“Nah, I’ll keep watch with ya for a while.”

He leans against the railing next to Grace while she watches yet another walker stagger past their temporary building. Daryl pulls out a pack of cigarettes and brings one to his lips.

“Can I bum a smoke?”

“Seriously? You’re what, twelve?”

“Eighteen. What’re you gonna do, tell my mom?”

Daryl rolls his eyes and taps out a cig, allowing Grace to pull it from the pack. He cups his hand around the flame of his zippo for her to get a light. Grace takes a long pull, filling her lungs with smoke as she stares back over the roof’s ledge.

“Justin used to bitch at me all the time to quit these.” She laughs humorlessly.

“What’d you say to him?”

“I’d always say, ‘piss off, brat,’ and throw something at him.” Daryl chuckles with a nod. He knows from experience what it’s like to be the bratty little brother, what with Merle always kicking his ass around.

Grace grins sadly as she and Daryl lean against the siding swapping stories of their childhood.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is based around my original characters for now. It'll expand later to include the TWD characters as well.

 

“Fuck, it’s cold out here,” Nicholas complains as the group of four treks through the streets. Grace peers through the empty shop windows as they pass; remembering the times she’d been in the different fast food joints, briefly making plans to pilfer through the stores for some extra supplies. She suddenly thinks of a place the group can find some blankets. Maybe even four walls and a roof.

“This way, guys,” she whispers. “Come on.” Grace leads the way up the one-way of 5th Avenue.

“You know where you’re going, Grace?” Ravie asks uncertainly.

“I would hope so,” Justin answers with a quiet chuckle. “We grew up here. Gracie even went to college just up the road here.” He gestures with the blade of his machete.

“You went to college?” Nicholas asks with way too much surprise for Grace's liking. Justin chuckles at Nicholas's obvious disbelief.

“Yes, thank you. We are actually headed right next door.”

 

After maybe half an hour of uneventful walking, Grace motions for them to slow down. She gestures toward a squat concrete building with dark brown roofing.

“A library? Why would there be blankets in a library?”

“I don’t know.” Grace rolls her eyes. “I always thought they’d done it for some kind of contest or something. I just remember always thinking it was odd, seeing a bunch of quilts hanging on the walls.”

"Oh, yeah," Justin mutters. "I'd forgotten about those."

  
Grace, after making sure they would stay silent, leads the way to the clear glass doors that lead into the main entrance area of the public library. Nicholas flanks Grace on the left and Ravie on her right with Justin bringing up the rear as they push through the doors, ignoring the walker trapped in the revolving door and continuing on to go about clearing the first floor.

Pushing through the right side of the room, zig-zagging through aisles of shelves full of books, maneuvering around the tattered tomes littering the floor, only finding two of the undead and dispatching them with ease. Grace leads the way across to the opposite side of the ground level where they find only one biter bumping stupidly against the wall like a fish in a bowl.

After making sure that they were the only things walking the first floor, the group slowly and silently clears the offices and bathrooms before making their way up the staircase in the center of the room to the second level. At the top of the steps, Grace hears the tell-tell groan of an upright corpse as it lumbers toward them from an open office door. Ravie steps forward to put it down before they move to finish clearing the office, having to slice their blades through the skulls of two moaning creatures that had been trapped behind a desk before moving on.

"You guys go around that side," Grace instructs, gesturing for Ravie and Nicholas to go to the right side of the circular room. "We'll take the left. Meet up in the middle."

With a nod, the four head trough their respective areas to quickly clear the middle floor of the library.

As Grace and Justin round the third shelf on their side, they find themselves face-to-face with three of the undead who immediately shuffle toward them, snapping their jaws hungrily. Without missing a beat, Justin shoves his foot into the one in the middle, creating a domino effect. He steps forward to quickly slice through their heads, spilling the blackened blood across the carpeted floor, and stepping over their finally still corpses to continue on their way.

Finally at the end of the long row of book cases, Grace catches something in her peripheral vision. Something she thought she'd never see again. She nudges Justin and points.

"See that?"

He just stares, eyebrows raised with disbelief.

There, next to the elevator, is the back-lit button with upward and downward pointing arrows. She never thought she could be so happy at something so small and taken for granted at some point in her life. Curious, Grace steps over to give the button a push.

A soft  _ping_  sounds as the yellow doors slide open, revealing two walkers, a male and female both with black drool dripping from their snapping jaws, that Grace quickly cuts down before pulling Justin into the lift. Figuring Nicholas and Ravie would be fine for a spell, Grace presses the button for the third floor. Her stomach turns as the siblings ascend and they take the ready position as the elevator comes to a stop.

As the doors ding open, Grace lets out a gasp as she and Justin notice the herd of a dozen or so walkers chomping their rotting teeth and curling their dead claws at a terrified blonde woman who is cowering behind an overturned bookshelf, shielding a child's stroller with her body. The siblings immediately snap into their heroic roles.

Justin looks around quickly and throws a hand full of books across the room in an attempt to draw at least a few of the biters away. A chunk of them take the bait, leaving a space for Grace run through to get to the mother and baby. Justin covers her as she darts across the room.

The room smells of nothing but death and decay. The groans and hisses ripping from the hungry throats of the undead making Justin's skin crawl as he drops zombie after zombie. The knives gripped in either hand drip with the thick, oily blood of the dead and he has trouble keeping a grip on the hilts of his weapons and yells for his sister to hurry the hell up and get the mother and child from behind the sideways shelving.

"Come on!" she whispers frantically as she helps the horrified mother lift the stroller over the fallen shelf and lending a hand to pull the woman over as well. Grace points back to the elevator being held open by a stack of books Grace had kicked in. Justin hollers for them to get a move on. He can't hold them off forever.

"Hurry! Run!" She gives the woman a shove toward the lift and yanks from her belt two fierce looking hunting knives, one for each hand, and helps Justin drop the biters like flies as they run. Suddenly, a piercing scream and the wail of the baby causes them to whip around. Grace's heart sinks as she watches the woman being dragged to the ground by three walkers as they tear into her flesh. She gives the stroller a final shove toward the elevator in a final attempt to save her child. Grace meets the woman's eyes as she pulls the stroller more toward the lift and understands what the woman wants her to do. Justin tries to take out the walkers surrounding the woman, but Grace yells for him to come on.

"You can't save her now, Jus." He gives the mother one last sympathetic look before dashing into the elevator.

As she faces the woman, Grace kicks the books out and allows the doors to begin to close. She loads a bolt into the crossbow she carries slung across her back, quickly aims and sends the arrow across the room to strike the woman's head, ending her pain and suffering.

The doors close with a final ding.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cain is fourteen and keeping his ten year old sister alive in the apocalypse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've gone through and edited this chapter since it's been on here because I didn't like the way some of it was written, so it may be slightly different if you've already read it.

As Cain leads Anna through the woods, both of them wielding hunting knives and keeping their eyes open for threats and/or anything useful, they hear a scuffle off in the trees to their right. He glances at Anna to make sure she's still there and moves to continue on their own way when he hears a muffled shout of, "Dad!" Cain stops again and turns to Anna who's already looking at him pleadingly.

"We have to help them, Cain," she whispers, giving her brother her best puppy-dog eyes.

"I know," he sighs as he pulls his bow over his head from where he'd had it over his chest. He slips an arrow from the quiver slung across his back and notches it on the string, holding the bow at the ready as he leads the way toward the dustup. Anna checks the clip of her Beretta and secures the silencer to the barrel as she follows silently behind her brother.

As they push through the brush, Cain sees a gruff looking man backed against a thick tree trunk, teeth bared as he holds off two walkers with a crossbow. Cain pulls his arrow backward and sends it flying across the clearing and through the skulls of both zombies. They fall together and Cain groans in frustration as he hears the arrow snap. The man looks up, surprised. He nods to Cain who returns the gesture.

Anna pops off three rounds, dropping that many biters and earning a look of surprised approval from the sheriff's hat wearing boy she's just saved. She smiles sweetly and follows Cain and Crossbow into the fray surrounding two other men.

Crossbow goes directly to the bearded man while Cain notches another arrow and takes out the biter, once a male wearing a shredded tuxedo, chomping at the Asian kid's throat receiving yet another surprised look. He rolls his eyes and yanks the arrow from the still body and shoving it through the ear of the last standing corpse.

"Anna?" Cain says looking to his little sister.

"I'm good," she answers with a nod.

Cain nods and kneels to wipe the gore from his arrow onto the tattered sundress of a fallen rotter before slipping it back into the quiver and going to check on the broken one, see if it could be salvaged.

No luck. He kicks the corpse with an angry growl.

"Who are you two?" the bearded man questions.

"I'm Cain, this is my sister Anna," he answers after a brief glance shared with Anna. He watches his sister wipe zombie spoor from her cheeks.

"Where's your group?"

"Don't have one."

"How do you  _not_ have a group?" the Asian butts in incredulously.

Cain clenches his jaw, straightening the feathers at the end of a hand-made arrow. "People, nowadays, are considerably less than friendly. Especially to the ones who have something to lose." He glances again at his sister, hating himself for everything that has happened to her.

The three men and the boy exchange looks before the bearded one speaks again.

"We can relate to that," he says. "I'm Rick. This is Glenn, Daryl, and my son Carl." He nods to each of them in turn. Cain and Anna incline their heads briefly, still not completely trusting these people.

"How many walkers have you killed?" Glenn asks.

Cain shrugs. "I don't know. A lot. Not exactly keepin' tallies."

"How many people have you killed?" asks Rick.

Cain clenches his jaw again, harder this time, as he looks back to his baby sister. "Five."

"Why?" Daryl asks the third and final question.

"Because they hurt my sister."

"And him."

"That doesn't matter right now, Anna."

"The hell it doesn't!" Anna whisper-shouts at him furiously.

"Watch your mouth." Cain shakes his head with a heavy sigh and turns back to Rick.

"We have a camp a couple miles back," Rick tells them, interrupting their squabble. "You're welcome to come back with us if you want."

Cain thinks for a second. He doesn't know these people. What if they turn out like the last group that had "welcomed" them back to their camp? Cain doesn't know if they'd be satisfied with just him if they are like the others. Or if they even want that kind of repayment from the Tenebris children for their hospitality. But they could be friendly. If they were, how could he take the chance and make Anna sleep against the rough bark of a tall oak tree again when she could be somewhat safe behind four walls and roof in friendly territory?

"How many people do you have?" he asks finally.

"We have about thirty. Including children."

Rick watches Cain think, waiting on an answer, shifting from foot to foot. Finally, Cain nods. "Yeah," he says. "Yes, we'd like to go with you."

Rick nods again and motions for them to follow him. Cain walks behind Rick and Carl with Anna following him and Daryl and Glenn bringing up the rear. Still not entirely trusting them, Cain tells Anna to walk in front of himself.

 

As they trek through the woods, with Daryl and Cain snagging any squirrel or rabbit they see and stuffing it into their game bags, everything goes relatively smoothly. The group stays mainly silent, except for the quiet sounds of their footsteps, up until Cain suddenly grabs a fistful of Glenn's shirt and yanks him roughly backwards.

"Cain, what are you  _doing?"_ Anna whispers furiously.

Cain rolls his eyes and bends to pick up a fallen branch. He leans over and shoves the stick into the rusty bear trap the Asian had nearly put his foot through. Everybody jumps at the suddenly loud sound the metal makes as it snaps closed around the piece of wood, biting completely through.

"Watch your step, Glenn," Cain says, tossing the broken stick away as he gestures for him to lead the way. Daryl lets out a quiet chuckle.

Ten minutes of hiking later, Rick pushes through the trees and Cain lets out a slightly sad, humorless laugh. Anna looks sadly up at her brother who wraps an arm around her shoulder.

"You guys took the prison," he states blatantly.

"Yeah," Rick answers, looking down at the boy questioningly.

"Were there any inmates alive when you got here? A man named Dennis Ryker?"

"No one by that name," Rick answers.

Cain nods solemnly and motions for them to get going again. Glenn leads the way across a small wooden bridge over an even smaller creek and across the field to the gates of the prison. Upon their approach, Cain sees, standing by the gates, ready to pull them open, a woman with short cropped silver hair. Upon their approach,the woman pulls down on the rope, causing the gates to swing open and allow their entrance.

"Who's this, Rick?" she asks as she kneels to look at Anna on her level. Cain immediately steps between them, pulling Anna behind himself. She huffs in slight annoyance.

"This is Cain and his sister Anna," Rick answers as the woman gets back to her feet.

"I'm Carol," she says with a friendly grin.

Cain gives her a curt nod, still shielding Anna. "Ma'am."

"Hey, Pookie," Carol says as she turns to the archer. He nods in greeting, but doesn't speak.

Rick looks up and waves over another woman with shoulder-length brown hair. As soon as she joins them, she wraps her arms around Glenn's neck, giving him a sweet peck on the lips.

"Maggie, will you show these two to an empty cell?"

"Sure," she says with a nod and little grin. "C'mon, guys."

As Maggie leads the way up to the prison, Cain reminisces about the times he'd come to this very place to visit Uncle Denny. The man was more of a father to him and Anna than their own, and he wasn't even blood. Just a friend of their father. Cain could never understand why Denny would want to be friends with Mitch Tenebris in the first place. The guy was a straight up douche with a capital bag. As far as Cain knows, Mitch and Louise are dead. He doesn't really care whether they are or not.

"Did you guys lose your group?" Maggie asks suddenly, pulling Cain away from his thoughts.

"We never really were part of a group," Anna answers.

"The first and last time we took somebody up on their offer to let us stay with them, it didn't turn out well," mutters Cain darkly, his mind going back to the first night he and Anna had stayed with those assholes.

"How have you made it on your own for so long?"

"We sleep in trees," Anna starts. "Eat berries, squirrels, rabbits, deer if we're real lucky. Anything worth the trouble, really."

"We stay close and trust each other," Cain adds. "I've got her back and I know she's got mine."

 

"What do you think of this place?" Cain asks as he watches Anna climb onto the top bunk with ease.

"It seems okay," she answers, "People seem nice. So far, anyway."

Cain nods with a huff and shoves his backpack underneath the lower bunk before sitting on the edge. He suddenly feels extremely sleepy. Finally, his stiff shoulders begin to relax and he lies back onto the thin mattress. It feels like reclining on a cloud after staying in trees or the hard ground for so long. Before he realizes, he's gone unconscious; the stress of living on the outside seeping out of his aching body at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All comments are welcome! Good, bad, suggestions for future chapters, any original characters you'd like me to add somewhere along the way. All you have to do is tell me!  
> ~F
> 
> XD


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a continue of chapter 3. It is in Anna's POV

Anna wakes on the top bunk in the shared prison cell momentarily disoriented by her surroundings.

“Cain?” she whispers. With a glance around the bit of the prison she could see, Anna notices through the opaque windows at the top of the wall opposite the cells that the sun is higher than when the siblings had arrived.

When Cain doesn’t answer, Anna takes a shaky breath as she hopes they hadn’t been wrong in returning to the prison with the men.

Slowly, silently, Anna creeps to the very edge of the mattress and peeks over to look down at her older brother. He’s still lying there, curled on his side facing the wall. But something doesn’t feel quite right to Anna. She leaps from the bunk and carefully leans over her brother, trying to listen for his quiet breaths.

When she hears nothing, Anna grinds her teeth with anger. She refuses to believe that her only reason for life is lying dead before her, ready to turn at any moment. She sucks in a calming breath and gives his shoulder a shake.

Nothing.

“No,” she breathes. “No, no, no. _Please, no.”_

With tears pooling in her eyes, Anna probes her fingers along Cain’s exposed throat, searching out her brother’s pulse point. Hope flutters in her chest as she feels a strong and fast beat of blood pounding through the veins of the only person who matters.

Realizing her brother is still alive, Anna darts from the room in search of the ringleader of this circus. She quickly finds him in the next cell-block sitting at a metal table cleaning his weapon with a dirty rag.

Rick glances up as the girl approaches.

“My brother won’t wake up,” she states bluntly and follows the glance between him and the archer.

As Crossbow--Daryl--rests his hand on the bowie knife hanging in a sheath against his hip, Anna quickly whips her own blade from her belt and yanks the man down to her level.

“He’s still alive,” the girl spits. “And if that changes because of you, you’ll be next. Understood?”

Brows raised with impressed surprise, the archer offers a nod. Anna lets him thud to the floor before turning to Rick. She notes the leader’s shocked expression and raised handgun before slipping her own weapon back into its sheath.

“Like I said, Cain’s alive, but I am worried about him. Y’all got a doctor in here?”

Rick glances to his right-hand man, who’d just been brought to the ground by a ten year old girl, who gives him a nod. With a sigh, Rick re-holsters his weapon and waves over an older man who hobbles toward them on a pair of crutches.

“Everything okay over here, Rick,” he asks as he watches Daryl pull himself to his feet.

“Yeah,” he answers then looks back down at Anna. “This is Hershel. He can take a look at your brother. Make sure he’s alright.”

With a nod, Anna turns and follows the doctor to the hole in the wall housing the eldest Tenebris.

“What’s the matter with him?” he asks.

“We fell asleep when we got here--yesterday, I guess.” She glances up at the windows again, trying to judge just how much time has passed since their arrival. Hershel nods.

“You slept for a little more than twelve hours yourself.”

Anna furrows her brow in confusion as she looks up at the old man. Neither she nor her brother have slept for more than two hours, maybe four if they’re lucky, at a time since the turn. Even then, it wasn’t restful. Just something their bodies demanded of them.

The old man slides a metal folding chair next Cain’s bunk and begins the examination. Anna helps to turn her brother’s body from its former wall-facing fetal position to flat on his back. Hershel gently presses his fingers against the boy’s wrist and silently counts the seconds. He then leans forward to raise the closed lids of Cain’s eyes to peer into them cautiously, always half-expecting to see the cloudy white orbs of the reanimated dead. He seems pleased to find the blue irises instead.

“When was the last time you two rested,” the aged doctor finally questions. Anna shrugs her small shoulders.

“Every now and again, we’ll settle up a tree for a couple hours.”

“Up a tree?” Hershel asks incredulously.

“Safer than sleeping on the ground at night.”

“It’s smart.” The doctor nods thoughtfully. “Something I wouldn’t have thought to do.”

Anna looks back to her brother, sprawled across the lower bunk, looking more peaceful than she could remember seeing him in along time. She feels responsible for what happens to him now, while he’s defenseless. After all these months--years really--that he’s taken care of her, she feels the need to make sure that she can do the same for him while he gathers his much needed rest.

“You should get something to eat,” Hershel suggests. “Seems like you haven’t eaten in a while.”

“I’ll eat when he wakes up,” Anna says with a slight shake of her head. “I have to stay with him.” So saying, she eases onto the edge of the bed next to Cain, curling around him with a protective arm across his chest.

With a sigh, Hershel gathers up his crutches and hobbles back out of the cell.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carl, Rick, and Glenn are out on their way to town and things go slightly south.

Carl sits outside the prison, stuffing enough rations and ammo into his pack to last for an overnight run--just in case. As he counts the bullets loaded into his pistol for what seems like the hundredth time, he notices a flutter of brown and black in the treeline past the chain link from the corner of his eye. Naturally curious, and a little paranoid, the boy raises the rifle lying near his feet in the grass to get a better look. He aims the scope past the fence and into the trees, searching for more of what he'd seen. He jumps slightly when he hears footsteps approaching.

"Carl?" Rick says as he comes closer to his son. "You see somethin'?"

"Dunno," he mutters, aiming back out into the trees. "Thought I saw something out there." He offers the weapon to his father, pointing in the general direction of the initial movement. He could have sworn that it had been a person.

"I don't see anything," Rick mumbles as he squints through the magnifier. "We'll have Daryl keep an extra eye over on this section while we're gone." With a nod, Carl--slightly surprised Rick had taken him seriously--follows his dad to the vehicle where Glenn is waiting for them. Rick slides in to ride shotgun while Carl slips into the backseat, ready to go.

 

The ride is quiet save for the discussions of what is needed and which is at the top of the list, formula and gasoline competing for the top position. Carl, for the most part, watches the scenery go by while hoping the thing from the woods would at least wait until they were back before making itself known. He wonders what exactly it was, anyways. Surely the Governor wouldn't just send his men to stand in the trees and watch them would he? He then begins to hope that, if the thing is Woodbury-related, it had followed the trio away from their home. Carl would never forgive himself if something were to happen to Judith while he was off gallivanting around in some empty town.

"Shit, shit,  _shit,"_  groans Glenn suddenly. Both Grimes boys turn questioning looks to the Korean as he steers the car onto the shoulder.

"Outta gas," he grunts angrily before slapping a palm against the steering wheel. "Been riding on fumes for the past half hour. Thought we'd be able to make it."

"Alright," Rick nods as he wipes a hand over his face, already thinking of the best way to continue on foot. "No use being mad about it. Nothing can be done just yet, and being pissed off isn't going to make anything better. We'll stick just past the treeline, out of sight from the road, and keep going."

With that, the trio gathers their knapsacks and set off into the woods, Carl keeping an extra careful eye on the trees around him.

It's because of this extra carefulness that the boy sees the half a dozen zombies to the east, fifteen yards and closing, before anyone else. He tries to quietly pull the two, much larger men back onto the road, but they choose that moment to question his motives aloud, alerting the walking dead to their exact location.

"What are you doing, Carl?" grumbles Glenn, pulling a frustrated look from the kid. Carl turns to look over his shoulder and sees that the herd stumbling toward them, jaws snapping and dripping black bile down their fronts.

 _Fuck it,_  he thinks, aiming his weapon at the closest hissing walker and pulling the trigger. The remainder of the small herd trip over their fallen comrade, making it easier for the trio finish them off.

As Rick and Glenn finally notice the problem, they brandish their own weapons, moving to take down the cluster and continue going on their way. None of them notices the other eight lumbering in their direction from the west.

The survivors quickly dispatch the remaining five biters and are catching their breath when Carl is jerked backward by a decaying hand curled into the collar of his jacket.

"Dad!" he shouts as his gun is knocked from his hand. Carl fights to get away from the rancid breath and blackened teeth chomping at his throat. He whimpers when he can't get out of the vise grip of the attacking beast, knowing that he isn't going to be going back home with his father tonight.

Just as Carl is accepting his fate, and wishing it would just happen already, he feels a sudden breeze ghost over his face and the walker slumps, motionless, to the ground. He snaps his head around to look at the body of the once-Dairy Queen worker--Jared, according to the name tag--red shirt and khaki pants shredded to almost nothing. Carl belatedly notices the long arrow protruding from the right eye socket of the fallen rotter. Carl hears Rick warning yell of more walkers coming behind him just in time to yank the machete from his belt and shove it through the ear of the closest beast.

The sound of hooves rushing over the grass comes from across the clearing and heads straight for Carl who is mostly surrounded. He watches frantically as the horse comes closer and he sees a boy--only slightly older than himself--offering a hand. He doesn't think twice before gripping the boys sweaty wrist and allowing himself to be hoisted onto the majestic animal. As soon as Carl's got a leg swung over the steed, the newcomer spurs the horse forward, trotting out of danger's reach. Carl wraps an arm around the other boy's waist and uses the other to slash through the biters that come near enough.

Once out of the worst of the cluster, the boy stands in the stirrups of the saddle, forcing Carl to grip his hips instead, and slips arrow after arrow from the homemade quiver across his back and sending them across the clearing faster than Carl thought Daryl could even think to reload his crossbow.

Carl feels useless, just sitting behind the kid who is saving two members of  _his_  family, only able to stab the walkers stupid enough to stumble within his reach. He looks longingly at his gun lying in the grass next to Jared the Dairy Queen guy. The boy glances over his shoulder at Carl with a, "Don't even think about it, dude," before turning back and sending his last arrow through the cranium of the last standing corpse that had been tromping behind Rick. Hearing the zombie drop behind him, Rick spins around to see the two boys astride the horse five yards away and the still bodies lying between himself and them.

The boy spurs the horse forward again to rejoin the two breathless men, slipping from the saddle once they're only five feet away. He turns to offer a hand to steady Carl as he follows suit.

"Who are you?" Rick demands as he jerks his son behind his own body.

"Redman," the boy answers, offering his hand to Rick. "Stu Redman. And yourself?"

After a moment's hesitation, Rick gives Redman's hand a firm shake, letting him know that Rick is the one in charge. "Rick Grimes."

"Why'd you help us?" Glenn asks, eyeing the boy up and down suspiciously.

"Really that hard to believe I just wanted to help some people not die?" Redman answers easily, turning to give his steed a once-over. He gives her a loving pat and offers a small sugar cube from a satchel hanging against his hip. "Atta girl," he whispers, planting a soft kiss to her snout.

"I was under the impression there weren't anymore good people out there," says Rick as he watches Redman.

"Well in that case," the kid says somewhat sarcastically, "A young boy like myself shouldn't be hanging around the likes of you  _not good_ people." He clicks his tongue and the horse starts forward a few steps before Rick stops them.

"We could use somebody with your skill," the leader starts, "We were on a run into town. Perhaps you'd like to join us. Help out."

Stu Redman lets out a  _pfft_ sound and shakes his head. "I'll be in touch," he tells them, shooting a wink to Carl, bringing a blush to the boys cheeks. "Just gimme a holler."

The Atlanta trio stand stunned as Redman spurs his horse with a little shout and then dashes back into the trees the way they'd come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you guys don't like reading original characters, let me know down in the comments. I'll see if I can't do something about it. Maybe write 'em off or just stop writing them into things I publish on here completely.
> 
> Thanks a ton to those of you who will actually comment.  
> :D  
> ~F


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace saves a kid in the woods.

As Graces treks through the woods in the Georgia heat, hunting down the wounded deer she’d shot through the lung, she hears the whimper of a small child. She whips her head around toward the sound before dashing through the trees, abandoning her hunt.

A sharp squeal leads Grace to the immediate left and she bursts through the brush to find a little girl, trembling with the effort of running from the half dozen walkers for so long. Quickly, Grace snatches her Bowie knife from her belt and launches herself between the girl and the perpetually hungry beasts.

“Hey, fugly!” she shouts, drawing the monsters away from the kid. “You want some? C’mon, I know I look good, but I taste even better.”

As the group of walking corpses lumber toward her, Grace plunges her blade to the hilt in the eye of the nearest one. She kicks back the second as the knife is yanked from her grasp. Grace rolls into a crouch and rips the blade from her kill with a sickening squelch and lunges onto the next walker in line, finishing off the small herd in a matter of minutes.

Wiping the gore from her knife, Grace turns to the child, curled on her side in the grass.

“Hey, girlie,” she says quietly, approaching her slowly. “You hurt? Bit?”

The girl tries to shake her head, but she’s trembling too badly.

"Tell me your name?” Grace asks, sweeping a lock of dirty blonde hair from her sweaty cheek.

“S-Sophia,” she mumbles back, struggling to sit up.

“I’m Grace.” She stands to remove her backpack. “Think you can hold on enough to ride piggy-back?”

Sophia nods again, more strongly this time. Grace kneels before her, allowing Sophia to scramble onto her back and wrap her arms around Grace’s neck. Grace slips her pack over Sophia for a bit more protection for her rear before continuing on through the forest.

“Thank you,” Sophia says after a few moments of silence. “For saving me.”

“Oh, it ain’t no trouble, honey,” Grace whispers back, giving the girl’s leg a pat. “Do you know where your people are?”

Sophia sighs sadly. “We were up on the highway and a big herd of walkers came through. We hid under the cars and stuff and stayed real quiet, but I tried to get out too soon. A couple walkers saw me and chased me into the woods.”

“Did they not come looking for you?”

“Rick did,” she says. “He hid me in a little dam so he could lead the walkers away. He said if he didn’t come back, to keep the sun on my left shoulder and head back to the road. But more walkers came and I got confused. Lost.”

“Well then, I guess we’ll get back to the highway and look for them from there."

Sophia nods and adjusts her grip around Grace as they start moving up hill.

 

As they weave through the trees, the girls run across only a handful of the walking dead, which Grace dispatches without much problem.

At the sight of the guardrail, Grace lets Sophia down and leads her quietly up the slope and to the pavement. She leaps over the rail and lifts Sophia over after.

Several vehicles away, Grace notices a white car with something written across the windshield.

"SOPHIA STAY HERE

WE WILL COME

EVERY DAY"

Beneath the message, resting on the hood, is a pile of food rations left behind for Sophia. Sun baked peanut butter, warm Gatorade, stale crackers, cans of corn with faded labels.

"It says they'll come back," Sophia says excitedly. "We have to stay here till they come back again."

Graces squints around, looking for somewhere to squat and wait for a few hours.

"We'll wait here for a couple hours, but it's not safe out in the open like this. Another herd could pass. Especially after dark."

"Where will we go? Back into the woods?"

"If I'm right, your people may be staying at a farm house up the road a ways. Well head that way 'fore long."

Sophia nods and twists open a bottle of yellow Gatorade, sucks down a quarter of it, and tears open a sleeve of Saltines.

Grace leans on the car next to the little girl and watches the sun slowly dip down, waiting for either the darkness to present itself, or Sophia's people to show. She is almost certain that the others are at Greene's farm. Hell, they may have even moved on; but she's certain that the house is still standing, so that's where she'll take the girl next.

The sudden rumble of a truck engine snaps both of the girls' attention forward. Grace can make out a blue Ford pick-up moving toward them. She pulls Sophia by the arm and tucks her underneath the back bumper of the SUV parked beside them to watch the truck pull up.

Grace watches two men step out of the cab. One, from the passenger side, wearing a leather vest over a sleeveless flannel and carrying a crossbow as he surveys the area. The other man, the driver, clothes in a sheriff's uniform minus the hat.

"Sophia!" Crossbow yells suddenly. The sheriff looks at him like he's lost his damn mind.

"What?" he snaps. "We're gonna find this little girl. Today."

"I completely agree with you, Dary," the sheriff says, holding his hands up, palms out. "But we're also gonna find every damn walker in the state, you keep hollerin' like that."

Crossbow--Daryl--doesn't get a chance to respond as Sophia suddenly yells his name and launches herself at him, throwing her skinny arms around his waist. He awkwardly pats her back before she envelopes the cop in a more returned hug. As she pulls away, Sophia turns back to the SUV where Grace is still hidden. "Grace?"

"Shit," Grace mutters under her breath as she shoulders her weapon to stand slowly. Daryl immediately aims his bow at her chest just as the sheriff does the same with his Python.

"Daryl! Rick! No, she saved me!" Sophia shouts, tearing herself from Rick's grasp and running toward Grace.

Daryl looks at Sophia, now standing protectively in front of Grace, and then to Rick.

"That true?" Rick demands, not lowering his weapon until she nods.

"These are your people?" she asks Sophia, who nods enthusiastically. "All right then. Best o' luck to y'all."

Grace turns on her heel and moves a step closer to the guardrail, preparing to step over it to head back the way she's come.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Sophia shouts, chasing after her.

"I got you back to your people," Grace gestures toward the guys. "Now I need to get back to lookin' for mine."

"Please come back with us," the girl begs, "Just for the night at least! It's not safe out after dark. You said so yourself. Please? Rick, tell her."

Grace turns, wondering what the apparent leader will do. She knows she should keep going, her little brother is out there somewhere with the others waiting for her to get back. She was only supposed to be out for a few hours, but that had turned into a few days. She just hopes that they're still in the same place when she finally does get back. But she also knows that she needs to rest up a bit. Tired is slow, Slow is dead. She waits to see what the sheriff will say.

"She can come back with us. If she wants to," he tells Sophia, his eyes never leaving Grace.

"Please, Grace?" Sophia gives the older girl her best puppy-dog eyes. Grace sighs.

"I'll stick around for the night. Be gone sometime tomorrow."

"Hop in." Rick motions to the bed of the truck where Daryl is already waiting.

"This should be a comfortable ride," she mumbles as she settles on the wheel cover across from the scowling man.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this one came out of nowhere. I decided to throw in the Criminal Minds BAU team. I think it started out as a little daydream thing but here it is. This is an alternate bit of season four where Beth escapes with Judith and Cain and Morgan find em.

Cain and Derek Morgan are trudging through the woods in silence, each lost in his own thoughts, when they hear a bit of a scuffle up ahead of them.

Sharing a glance they move forward as quietly as they can and peak through the brush to see a group of people fighting off a medium sized herd of the walking dead. Morgan gasps and launches himself into the fray. Cain, surprised, follows after the agent. He may not actually enjoy Morgan's presence, but Cain doesn't want the man dead and chasing after him.

  
With the walkers down, Cain still holds his piece trained on who seems to be the leader of this group.

"Kid, what are you doing?" Morgan shouts, moving to stand protectively in front of the others. "Put it down. These are my people. The people I've been looking for."

After a moment's hesitation, Cain finally lowers his weapon. The leader does the same.

"Derek?"

Morgan whips around to see none other than a pleasantly plump woman staring transfixed, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Hey, lil' mama," he says gently, a smile on his face. He steps toward her and she launches herself into his arms. The rest of the group follows suit and he is enveloped in a tight group hug while Cain stands awkwardly to the side, keeping watch.

By the time Morgan, teary eyed, fights his way from the middle of the huddle, Cain is feeling anxious and ready to keep moving. He knows that his people should be somewhere near here and he needs to find them. He can't rest until he does.

"What's up, kid?" he says approaching the teen. "You look antsy."

"I am. And now that you're with your people, I'm gonna go find mine." Cain turns to leave, ignoring the team of agents behind Morgan.

"Whoa, man, c'mon," he says, touching Cain's shoulder. The boy jerks away, quickly knocking the agent's hand away from himself.

"Look--" Cain stops, trying to make sense of the sound he'd just heard. "Did--" he hears it again, closer this time.

A baby's cry.

"Judith," he breathes before racing off into the trees, Morgan and the team hot on his trail, in the direction of her cries.

Cain bursts through the trees into a clearing to see Judith squirming in the arms of a stranger, screaming and reaching her little arms out toward another man on the other end of the small field. Cain thinks how odd that is until the other man whips around at their arrival.

Cain gasps as Beth's terrified eyes meet his.

She has a knife to her throat.

Cain immediately aims at the attacker's head: directly between his eyes.

"Drop it," he demands. The man snorts.

"I been chasin' this piece o' tail around for a while," he says, sliding the tip of his blade down her throat. Her lip trembles as she lifts her chin defiantly. Cain feels rage boiling inside him. "What makes you think I'm gonna just let her walk away without having my way? She's been claimed."

"I will put a bullet between your eyes," Cain snarls. "Turn her loose."

"N--"

A loud bang echoes through the trees. The man drops, blood spilling from a dime-sized hole in the centre of his forehead. Beth turns toward Judith still squirming in the other man's arms. He stills and raises one hand, showing he's unarmed.

"I'm unna give 'er back to yeh, aight?" he says, taking a step toward Beth. She nods and reaches toward the baby. The man, true to his word, hands the child over and turns to face the barrel of Cain's gun.

He squeezes the trigger.

The second attacker drops with a muted thud. He steps over the lifeless body and walks right into Beth's open arm, wrapping both of his own around her and Judith. Judith clings to him when he pulls away, so he gently takes her into his arms.

"Are you okay?" he asks quietly, allowing the baby to finger the thin chain hanging around his neck.

"Yeah," Beth whispers back. "Who are they?" She gestures to the group Cain had nearly forgotten.

"Oh, that one-" he points to Morgan "-is a guy I met in the woods and those are his people I don't know the names of. They're with the FBI."

"Like that means anything anymore," she grumbles following Cain as he goes to the group.

Morgan is giving Cain a concerned and calculating look as he hikes Judith higher on his hip.

"What?" he snaps. "You don't touch my niece and get to live. Not in this world."

"It's understandable, I guess," he nods slightly. "If this one's your niece, is she your sister?"

"Of sorts," Cain says looking down at her.

"May as well be," she wraps her arm around his waist and leans against him, thankful to be back with someone from the group. Cain tightens his arm on her shoulder and kisses her hair. "But she's not mine. She's the daughter of the leader of our group. I'm Beth."

"I'm Derek Morgan," he introduces himself, offering his hand which she takes with a light shake. "And these are my team. Aaron Hotchner, Spencer Reid, David Rossi, Jennifer Jareau, Penelope Garcia, and Emily Prentiss."

He points to each one in turn and Cain nods politely to each of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If y'all have any ideas or crossover suggestions I will do them if I know the show/movie/book the characters are from


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prison falls and we lose someone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so you know, I'm shit at summaries. But don't worry too much.  
> ~C

Cain is in the prison’s library, rifling through the selection when he hears a muffled _boom!_ that rattles the entire building. Dust rains down on him as he scurries toward the exit and another blast shakes the room. He draws his pistol from its place at his hip as he blinks into the sun. He can hardly hear himself think over the roar of gunfire and he drops to the ground as a bullet whizzes past his face.

“Sasha!” he yells over the sound of battle. “Where's Anna? She was with the kids!”

The woman shakes her head, taking aim over an old file cabinet. “I haven't seen her. You seen Ty?” Cain shakes his head, promising to keep an eye out for him before launching himself into the fray, dodging bullets as he calls out for his sister.

“Anna!” he shouts between firing shots at the Governor’s army. “ _Annabelle_!”

He slashes through a trio of walkers as he makes his way across the prison yard, refusing to believe that she’s already gone. “C’mon, A! Where are you?! _Belle_!”

Finally, across the yard, he sees the familiar blonde head he’s been looking after for eleven years. She’s surrounded walkers, fighting them off with an ax and a broken shovel. Cain takes off running across the concrete toward his little sister unail he’s tackled to the ground by one of the Governor’s men.

An elbow slams into his jaw, knocking his head back. Cain’s gun falls from his hand to skitter across the ground as the man straddles him, wrapping his hands around the boy’s throat. Cain claws at the stranger’s face, carching an eye to get his enemy off of him and air in his lungs. He brings a knee up into the man’s groin just hard enough to force his grip to loosen. The guy sits back, a hand cupping his injury, leaving just enough space for Cain to shove his foot into his opponent’s chest, effectively kicking him away.

Cain rolls to his feet and searaches the ground for a weapon. Spying his gun resting several feet away, he dives for it, barely getting a grasp around the grip when he's jerked backward but a rough hand in his shirt. Without looking, Cain jams the barrel under his attacker’s chin and squeezes the trigger, nearly blowing out his own eardrum in the process.

By the time Cain gathers his bearings, he hears a piercing shriek.

“ _ANNA_!” he screams, watching a lumbering corpse tear into her shoulder as another rotting carcass latches its blackened teeth onto her forearm. Cain screams again as his baby sister is dragged to the ground. “ _NO_!”

An inhuman howl rips from his throat as a pair of powerful arms wrap around him like a vise. He struggles and kicks as he is lifted off his feet and carried backward, away from the walkers feasting on his sister.

“C’mon, kid,” a voice pleads behind him. “There's nothing you can do and we have to go. This place is overrun!” Cain fights hard, but Tyreese is much too strong.

It's only when they reach the tree line that Cain is finally released, dropping to the ground and staying there, barely feeling the raw burn in his throat. He hears soft footsteps in the grass come to a stop next to him.

“I'm sorry, Cain,” Mika says quietly, placing a small hand in his shoulder. “But we have to keep moving. All this noise is going to bring in a bunch of them.”

Slowly, Cain nods his head and pulls himself to his feet. Keeping his eyes foreword, he follows Tyreese and the girls away from the prison. He refuses to look back, knowing Anna will soon be nothing more than a stain on the sun baked concrete.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace is sad and is overthinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one may have some triggers so I'm gonna make a little list here:  
> •thoughts of suicide  
> •self hatred  
> •maybe more but idk, just be warned

_Worthless. You are the most worthless piece of garbage left on the planet. Just do them a favor and kill yourself already._

"Shut up," Grace grinds out to the vicious voice in her head.

 _You know I'm right, Gracie. You're nothing and you know it. May as well put that gun to good use._ Grace stares angrily at the fully loaded firearm holstered to her thigh. _You let your brother die and now you really are alone._

"No I am not," she whispers defiantly. Trying to make herself believe that she belongs with this group. They saved her. Why would they do that if they didn't want her? Grace glances at the man sitting across from her, sharpening his knife as he waits for his shift at the fence. Daryl was the one who actually saved her and her brother from the massive hoard of the undead that had had them cornered in an alley. Glenn had stood across the street with a rifle to back his friend up.

_They're just using you. As soon as you cease to be useful, they'll drop you like the trash you are._

"They wouldn't do that." But does she really believe it? Grace knows that Rick would do anything to keep his family safe and as soon as she becomes a threat, Rick will make sure that she gets left behind. She just hopes that when he does, he might spare a bullet to keep her from coming back as a member of the walking dead. "They're good people."

"You say somethin', Gracie?" Daryl asks, putting a stop to her near-silent self hatred.

Grace looks up and shoots him a lazy grin. "I think you're hearing things, D. You finally startin' to lose your shit?"

Daryl snorts with a shake of his head and turns back to his blade.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm putting my OC through a lot with this one oh man

“So how old are you?” Reid asks, looking quizzically at Cain. The boy takes a breath to answer but quickly releases it again.

“Ya know, I'm not real sure,” he chuckles. Then he gets thinking. “Lets see. I had just turned thirteen when the shit hit the fan; it had been about a year when we found the prison and now it's been, I dunno, six months? So I'd say about fifteen.”

Reid lifts his brows with surprise, like his guess was way off. “You said we. Who was with you then? When you found the prison?”

Cain is about to answer, somewhat reluctantly, when a soft gasp sounds from behind him. He glances to Beth and follows her gaze to the back a small corpse crouched over a fallen doe. The squelch of the raw meat being torn from the carcass reaching them at over five yards. Morgan moves to take it out but Cain’s firm hand on his arm makes him pause. The man glances to Cain, confused.

Tears well in Cain’ eyes as he watches the child walker eat. He knows that little blonde head. Knows the tattered, blood-stained t-shirt it's wearing.

“Anna,” he breathes.

That small sound has the walker turning to find the source and once Cain sees the face that had belonged to the most important person in the world to him, a broken sob forces its way from his throat. The cheeks that had once been rosy with mirth are mostly gone, showing small blackened teeth  
stained with blood. Eyes that used to be the clearest blue are now bloodshot and opaque, staring hungrily at the group. From where he stands, Cain can see the several chunks of flesh missing from her arms where she’d been taken down when the prison fell.

The small corpse lumbers toward them, guttural growls pouring from its throat and Cain unsheathes his knife. He sniffs once before stepping toward it. As he walks purposefully around it, the walker turns to follow him. She -- no _it_ \-- hisses and groans as it approaches him.

“I'm so sorry, Belle,” he whispers before stepping forward. He shoves the long blade of his buck knife to the hilt into her skull and watches the body fall to the ground. Unable to take his eyes away from from the still body, he falls to his knees and cries, repeatedly apologizing for not being there when she needed him. After several long moments, Beth passes Judith off to JJ before kneeling next to her distraught friend. Cain haltingly meets her eyes for a second before she wraps her slim arms around his shoulders, pulling him to her and allowing him to sob into her shoulder.

“How did she get here?” he asks, his voice cracking. “How did she get so far?”

“I don't know, Cain,” Beth answers quietly as she strokes the back of his head. “I don't know.”

Suddenly, a twig snaps and every head in the group turns east just as at least half a dozen more walkers stumble into the small clearing. Without a second thought, Cain, cheeks still wet, jerks the blade from his sister’s skull and cuts down the closest one just before it takes a bite out of Prentiss and knocking another to ground, shoving a boot through its head as he passes. Afterward, he runs between the walkers and the group, angrily shouting at them, gaining their attention.

“C'mon,” he spits. “Y'all look hungry! Come getcha a bite!”

Cain begins to walk backward, deeper into the woods and out of sight as the remaining four biters stumble after him. He kicks the first one in the gut, knocking it backward into the one behind it, effectively putting both of them on the ground. Before they can scramble to their feet, Cain stomps through first one skull and then the other. The last two walkers trip over their fallen comrades and directly into Cain, dragging him to the forest floor. He winces as the sharp end of a stick digs into his back, tearing the skin as he holds their gnashing teeth away from his face. Cain flails his arm out to the side, grasping wildly for his knife. Just as his left arm begins to tremble with the effort of holding the beasts off, his fingers finally wrap around the hilt and he plunges the blade through the ear of the closest one before jerking it back out, wincing as the stick beneath him buries itself farther into his flesh. With a strangled curse, Cain quickly shoves his blood-covered blade into the last remaining corpse.

With a sigh of relief, the boy shoves the bodies to the side and pulls himself to his feet. He feels around for the wound in his back, wincing at the tenderness; his fingers come back bloody.

“Shit,” he sighs. There's just another problem he's going to have to deal with on top of everything else.

  
“Man, what the hell was that?” Morgan demands, advancing on Cain as he makes his way back into the clearing. “You could've gotten yourself killed!”

“That was me handling the problem,” replies Cain as he cleans his blade on the tattered shirt of a fallen rotter.

“You're bleeding,” Prentiss says, a tinge of worry in her voice.

Cain just waves a hand of dismissal as he moves to continue on their original path. “Just a scratch,” he mutters.

“From a walker?”

“No, not from a walker,” Cain snaps angrily, rounding to face the woman. “The hell kind o’ person you think I am? I wouldn't have come back if I'd’ve been bit.”

“Let me check it out,” Beth says, already lifting the hem of his shirt. Cain doesn't twist away quick enough and he doesn't miss the collective gasp at the group’s first glimpse of the mural of scar tissue across his back.

“I told you to leave it be,” he says quietly, not meeting their eyes. “Let's keep moving. Get that baby back to her daddy.”

With one last glimpse at the half rotten body of his twice dead sister, Cain turns and leads the way back to the train tracks to continue on their way toward Terminus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If y'all have any suggestions for future chapters, lemme know :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not too fond of this one to be honest. But it's Rick, Michonne, Grace (my oc), and Abraham going on a run together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first time trying to write Abraham and I'm not loving it tbh. Lemme know what y'all think.

It had rained overnight and everything that hadn't been properly stored is soaking wet and several people are emptying their bags to let them dry. However, several important things have been completely ruined. Rick, Abraham, Michonne and Grace offer to go out and replace the ruined supplies. They pile into one car with Rick and Grace in the front and Abraham and Michonne in the back for the ride into town. Only a few walkers, wandering aimlessly, are visible. As he stops the car, Rick gives out his orders.

  
“Grace, you and Abraham take the west end. Michonne and I’ll take the east. We meet back here in one hour. Got it?”

  
At the sound of everyone's affirmative, they exit the vehicle and take off toward their assigned areas taking down walkers as they go. Abraham and Grace approach what used to be a bar and Grace pulls her lock picking kit from her pocket to get to work as Abraham watches her back.

  
“Ya know, it's a mighty fine day for bustin’ walker skull,” he says cheerfully. Grace just shakes her head and steps back to pull the door open. Before she opens it, she tosses a glance to the man next to her, asking if he's ready. He nods and they barge in, weapons drawn. The sound of walker moans pulls their attention to the back of the building. Exchanging a glance, Abraham yanks open the door for Grace to run in ahead of him.

  
“Holy mother of fuck,” Abraham curses as Grace’s jaw drops at the sight before them.

  
A set of rusty metal stairs -- thankfully blocked by a piece of fallen machinery -- leads down to the warehouse behind it. In the warehouse, amongst all the broken brewing down machines, there are no less than a hundred walkers hissing and spitting as they bump off each other and the walls.

  
“What do we do?” Grace breathes, taking a step closer to him.

  
“We leave,” he whispers, slowly pulling her by her shirttail. “Real slow like. No noise.”

  
As they step backward into the main bar, a gnarled hand curls into the collar of her shirt. A grunt of surprise pulls from her throat as she tries to silently fight the walker off. It's fetid breath ghosting over her face paired with the collar cutting into her neck makes her choke. Finally, Abraham jerks his knife from his belt and grabs a handful of the walker’s scraggly hair and plunges the blade into its skull. Slowly, he drops the body onto the floor.

  
“Thanks,” she huffs. The man offers a nod.

  
“We can just go through what's in here and get back,” he says quietly, carefully closing the brewery door. “As much as I would love to cut down every one o’ those fuck nuts, even I know that would be a suicide mission right now.”

  
Grace nods once and they begin to silently pick through the booze lining the shelves behind the counter. She lets out a happy grunt when she finds a loaded single barrel shotgun next to a nearly full box of ammo. Abraham gives a thumbs up with a grin as she slings the weapon over her shoulder and stuffs the ammo in her pack.

  
Turning back to the liquor, a bottle of Jack Daniels catches Grace’s eye. It used to be her favorite drink when she just wanted to unwind. Fuck it, she thinks as she slips the bottle into her pocket. When she glances over to Abraham, making sure he wasn't watching, she finds him doing the exact same thing. Their eyes meet as they're slipping the bottles into their pocket and neither one of them can help but chuckle.

  
“R and R?” she asks quietly. “I pegged you as a Fireball drinker.”

  
Abraham snorts. “‘Cause I'm ginger?” he asks, feigning hurt. “Well I figured you for fruity vodka drinks on the weekend, not kickin’ back with a bottle of Jack D.” Grace rolls her eyes and they slip the rest of anything useful -- a map, some toilet paper, and a first aid kit -- into their packs before heading back toward the door. With a chuckle, Abraham tosses a friendly arm over her shoulder as he shoves open the door and squints in the sunlight.

  
“Stop right there,” comes a new voice, causing them to halt. “Drop your weapons and step away.”

  
Blinking a few times to adjust her eyes to the light, Grace assesses the situation. There are three women, all haggard and rough looking, each pointing a pistol at the duo. Abraham, arm still around Grace’s shoulders, turns his palms out while Grace turns her right hand out. Her left is behind Abraham and slowly making its way under the back of his jacket to grip the sidearm hidden there.

  
“I said, drop your weapons!” the woman in the middle demands, shaking her gun at them.

  
Grace taps Abraham’s side three times, telling him what she plans to do. He knocks his boot against hers to let her know he understands.

  
“Alright,” Abraham says calmly. Using his right hand, he moves to pull the shotgun from Grace’s arm. As he bends to lay it on the ground, Grace jerks the handgun from Abraham’s waistband and gets two rounds off before a sharp pain erupts through her shoulder. She drops down to one knee, the .9mm clattering to the ground. The wounded girl watches through watery eyes as the last standing stranger looms over her, complete loathing in her eyes as she aims her pistol at Grace’s head.

  
Suddenly, Abraham whirls around, shotgun in hand, and sends a shell through the woman’s chin. The man spins around to clamp a hand on either side of Grace's injured shoulder, applying enough pressure for her to bite out a curse.

  
“Goddamnit, Grace,” he huffs, a concerned look on his face. “You--” The beginnings of a rant are cut short by the sound of a large crash from the building behind them. It seems as though the metal blocking the stairway had fallen over. “Oh son of a shit biscuit.”

  
“Get their stuff,” Grace orders quietly, pulling herself to her feet. Without argument, Abraham snatches the packs from the three dead women while Grace shoves their guns into her bag.

  
Grace looks up at the sound of running feet, ready to fight; she sighs, however, when she sees only Rick and Michonne’s panicked faces.

  
“Get back to the car,” Abraham growls as he tugs Grace away from the bar; sounds of the dead trying to get through the locked warehouse door. Grace winces as her shoulder is jerked around but pushes herself to hurry regardless. At first, Rick looks as if he might argue but, at the incessant sound of a hoard of walkers groaning and hissing not five yards away, he grabs the bags off Abraham and runs while Michonne lightens Grace’s load and allows Abraham to usher her into the backseat.

  
Once settled into the seat, Grace consents to Abraham squeezing his hands around her shoulder once more.

  
“That was a shit plan,” he grumbles.

  
“Didn't see you comin’ up with somethin’ better,” Grace snaps.

  
Before an argument can start, Rick asks, “So what the hell happened back there? Where’d those people come from?”

  
“There was a fuck ton of walkers in there, that's what.”

  
“How many is a fuck ton?” Michonne wonders, offering the two in the backseat a clean towel.

  
“Too fuckin’ many,” Grace replies with a hiss. Abraham had just dumped a shot’s worth of vodka over her bullet wound: enter and exit.

  
“Don't be a pussy,” he mumbles.

  
“Where'd they come from?”

  
Grace tries to shrug, but quickly thinks better of it. “I dunno. They were there when we came out. Demanded our weapons and we had to act fast.”

  
“In the back of that bar was a warehouse full of brewing equipment. One o’ the machines was blockin’ the stairs, keeping a bunch of ‘em in there. Hundred at least.” While Abraham explains, he tends Grace's arm; steadily applying pressure and lifting the towel every so often to check the bleeding. “You're gonna need stitches.”

  
“Ain't the first time.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam is hurt and found by one of the Group™. Set during season four of The Walking Dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to longer but I couldn't figure out how to take it any further.

Sam groaned as he came to, a piercing pain splitting the back of his skull. He checked the sun’s position in the sky for the time; according to the rays pouring through the leaves, he'd been out for several hours lying prone in the middle of the forest surrounded by motionless biters. Before he could struggle to his feet, Sam felt an unfamiliar hand on his shoulder and moved to jerk away.

  
“Don't move,” came a gruff voice as the hand pressed him back down. “Gonna hurt yourself.” Immediately Sam stilled, wary as the stranger moved around to face him.

  
“Look,” Sam said, “I don't want any trouble.”

  
“Who's startin’ any?” the man asked as he looked Sam over for bites or scratches.

  
Sam furrowed his brow, wondering why some hardened redneck was being kind to him when he could have just as easily killed Sam and made off with his gear.

  
“What's your name?” the guy inquired once he was satisfied Sam wouldn't turn.

  
“Sam,” he answered, no longer feeling the need to lie. “You?”

  
“Daryl.”

  
Sam nodded and slowly pulled himself into a more comfortable sitting position, ignoring the sharp pangs radiating through his head. He glanced around with hopes of seeing his brother watching through the trees. With no luck, Sam sighed and prodded his scalp. Feeling around the knot at the back of his head, Sam winced and brought his hand back around to check for blood.

  
“Here.”

  
Sam looked up to see the redneck offering him a red shop rag to clean the wound. “Thanks.”

  
“What happened?” asked Daryl after a moment of silence.

  
“My brother and I were fighting off a pack of biters,” Sam informed him, glancing around at the half dozen rotting bodies around him. “He must’ve lured the rest off somewhere else when I went down.” Sam refused to believe Dean had let himself get killed.

  
“So you're on your own?”

  
“For the time being.” Daryl nodded in understanding and Sam got the feeling the other man used to have people too. “You headed anywhere special?”

  
“Not particularly. Just keepin’ an eye out for mine.”

  
After a few moments of quiet thinking, Sam figured that Dean may have used the train tracks to get back to him. They'd been headed to take out the cannibals staying at a place called Terminus. Just then he remembered the sign with a bloody message around the map. He suddenly looked up to the man sitting opposite him.

  
“You don't know a Glenn or Ma--?”

  
Before Sam could even finish the sentence, Daryl was on him, a long buck knife at his throat. “The hell you know about Glenn and Maggie?” he snarled.

  
Eyes wide, Sam held his hands up in surrender. “I don't know them. There's a sign back on the tracks,” he gestured to the west, “It’s just telling a Glenn to go to Terminus.”

  
“The hell’s Terminus?” demanded Daryl, not letting his grip loose.

  
“A trap,” Sam explained. “It's a group of cannibals luring in dinner. My brother and I were headed out to end ‘em.”

  
“How do I know you ain't one of ‘em?”

  
“I guess you don't really, but would I have just told you they were cannibals if I was with them?”

  
After a moment, Daryl let go and sat back. Sam cautiously pulled himself to his feet and swung his bag over his shoulder.

  
“Look. You don't trust me and I get it; I don't exactly trust you all that much either to be honest,” Sam admitted with a shrug. “But I'm assuming that, since you know them, we're headed the same way.”

  
Daryl squinted and looked off into the trees for a moment before nodding once. He adjusted the crossbow strapped to his back and gestured for Sam to lead the way back to the tracks. Before turning, however, Sam pulled his own blade from his belt and marked the tree as a just-in-case for Dean. Letting his brother know he wasn't dead, just continuing on.

  
At the tracks, Daryl stopped to look at the sign and Sam watched as a little ray of hope splashed over the man’s gruff face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow I'm sorry this chapter is in the past tense while the rest of it is in present. I'm so sorry. I'll be keeping the rest of it in the present after this.


End file.
